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How technology is influencing driving in 2017

The last few years impressed people with the amazing breakthrough related to technology. Tech is now included in each and every sector of our lives, even though it might sound quite difficult to absorb that bit of information. Technology started to become something people cannot function without. It actually began to take control over humanity, but fortunately, that happens in a good way. Since Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality are more and more popular, it was just a matter of time until it entered the automotive industry too. Cars use technology for a long time, but nowadays, a limit was reached.

During this year, the automotive industry developed and commercialized self-driving cars. What can be more impressive than that? Yet, normal cars are not to be ignored either. The last model of Ford Explorer at Edmunds attracted many customers and the industry is probably going to encounter a boost. See some detailed information about cars and technology below:

The levels of autonomous driving

The idea of an autonomous car is already popular. To begin with, somewhere around the year 2014 people started to develop autonomous driving cars on six different levels, from 0 to 5. The public and the automotive industry began to speak the same language meaning that the customers knew what they desire, and the companies knew what to offer. Each level of the autonomous driving means something and that’s the easiest way to classify cars.

First levels

Level 0 includes cars that leave the driver deal with everything. The system is not intervening in any way and the driver is – most likely – assisted by warnings. Most cars are included in this category at the moment and the driver is 100% engaged.

Level 1, on the other hand, includes a system that takes control of the steering or the acceleration/deceleration of the car. Yet, in this state, the driver should be always attentive and ready to take control of the car at any given moment. So, cars that are included in this category are not that useful as people may think. These can be useful for lane departure prevention and adaptive cruise control.

For level 2 and 3, cars will start included systems that take control of both direction and acceleration and are able to identify the road conditions all alone and notify the driver in what period of time he will be required to take control over the vehicle. If the driver is not taking control of the vehicle, it is going to stop avoiding any unpleasant event.

Final and most important levels

Levels 4 and 5 include cars that can control themselves fully. The driver is able to fully delegate the driving scenario and he is no longer required to monitor the car in any way. Once it reached level 5, the car is going to select the driving scenario on its own depending on driving and weather conditions and the driver may be completely absent from the vehicle. The steering wheel and the pedals can be removed at this stage.